FOOD AS ART: POUR SHOTS (8B)
THE POUR SHOT
You can use beer, wine, lemonade, root beer, or ginger ale… Whatever you want to pour.
The brief:
A close-up of a pour shot… this can be from oblique to the camera to straight over top. It must show an interesting ‘splash’ or something interesting in the glass as it is pouring in.
Props include a bottle to pour from, or a can, or a container, and a glass/goblet/container to be poured into.
- We must see the color of the liquid being poured.
- We must see the pour into the container.
- The background must remain uncluttered.
- The masthead of the magazine must be easily seen.
Lighting Cues:
Often to light something pouring, we need some backlight. Liquid rarely looks good when it is front-lit. We lose the liquidity of it, as well as the inherent color – or at least the perceived color of it – with front light.
Whether window or strobe, make sure the light is coming through the liquid.
Shooting Cues:
One way to get a perfect pour is to mount a bottle with no bottom on it. Take a wine bottle (soda, pitcher) and cut off the bottom of it with a glass cutter. Be very careful to do this without having a sharp edge that can cut your hands. Put some masking or gaffers tape along the sharp edge if you have no way to dull it. It may be best to have a professional do it if you are not sure.
Mount the bottle with the spout coming into the frame at the exact point you want it to be, and pour the liquid in from the backside of the open bottle. You can use Gaffers tape to mount the bottle to a stand or boom if you wish… be creative.
If mounting a bottle or can is not going to work, then you must have something to cue you for the pour to make sure the can or bottle is not too close to the glass or out of the frame. I do want to see the vessel pouring as well as what it is being poured into.
Here is a whole page of beer shots for you to examine. Notice the lighting.
Here is a page of wine pouring shots as well.
And for the non-alcoholic approach, here is soda being poured as well.
Do not copy. Look, see and learn… then do something fantastic. Pretend it will be going on the cover of a magazine.
Paul sets the bar pretty high with his really fun, experimental pour shot. Using an aquarium to allow us to see the liquid pouring through additional liquid, and several lights, the image is a very cool example of trying something different. There are things he can do to improve it; lighten the liquid base so it more matches the shot below, and perhaps a bit of a kicker on the bottle, but overall, a pretty darn good image.
Photograph by Paul Brousseau.
Billy used precisely controlled light to get the highlights and texture of the pour. As you can see, he is shooting into a scrim, but also flying black cards to give the pouring liquid some negative reflection so it is not simply blown out by the backlight. You can see the effect of the black cards in the pour beautifully rendered.
Photograph by Billy Walker
The fill cards in front were removed so you can see the product and the placement before the light. Loren used a classic backlight (scrim) to give the liquid life, and fill cards up front to open up the label. Backlight on its own will not work when using labels or something you need to see in the front. In those cases, fill cards will work very well.
Photo by Loren Gietzen.
WORKING WITHOUT FLASH
DECONSTRUCTING A POUR SHOT
REMEMBER:
The images are to be put in an album on the Facebook Group Page. The album will be available starting after the current review is completed.
Make sure you upload the photograph and the behind-the-scenes photograph.
